1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus for ejecting liquid supplied from a liquid supplying source from an ejection head.
2. Related Art
One example of a liquid ejecting apparatus currently known in the art is an ink jet printer which ejects ink droplets and recording characters or drawings onto a thin-plate recording medium such as paper or plastic. In addition, another example liquid ejecting apparatus ejects various liquid-type materials which form color materials or electrodes onto a pixel forming area or an electrode forming area, in a display manufacturing apparatus. The display manufacturing apparatus is used for manufacturing a liquid crystal display, a plasma display, an organic electroluminescence (EL) display, a field emission display (FED) or the like.
In a typical liquid ejecting apparatus, a liquid channel for guiding the liquid from the liquid supplying source, in which the liquid is stored, to the ejection head is formed by a resin tube or a frame wall as described in Japanese Patent Application JP-A-2005-219229. However, in such a liquid ejecting apparatus, it is difficult to prevent the air outside the liquid channel from passing through the tube or the frame wall and passing through the liquid channel. Any of this air that is not completely melted in the liquid may cause one or more air bubbles to occur in the liquid in the liquid channel. The air bubbles which occur in the liquid channel are gradually grown and absorb pressure which is applied to the liquid in order to eject the liquid. This often leads to a failure in ejection of the liquid or a failure in the supply of the liquid due to the clogging of the liquid channel.
In order to prevent the air bubbles from being mixed with the liquid, one solution provides for a chamber in a common liquid chamber that is in communication with a pressure chamber which applies ejection pressure to the liquid with an air-permeable film interposed therebetween. This decreases the pressure of the chamber so as to be lower than that of the common liquid chamber, which in turn suppresses the occurrence of the air bubbles in the pressure chamber. This is described in Japanese Patent Application JP-A-2006-95878.
However, various configurations for efficiently eliminating the air bubbles mixed into the liquid in the liquid channel (for example, the structure of the liquid chamber or the chamber and the configuration of the depressurizing unit for depressurizing the pressure of the chamber) are not sufficiently considered.